Judy Garland has so rightfully said, “Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else.” We all want to accomplish something diverse, something exclusive, but there is a faint line that draws between zeal and cautiousness.
The 2021 Actuality
As we grapple with a global pandemic that’s uprooting lives, forcing people to work from home, the theory of work-life balance has drastically altered. While work plays a significant role in ensuring there’s food on our tables and rainy days aren’t grey, maintaining equilibrium between work and family in the current technology-social media driven lives is difficult but all the more imperative.
Why has it become routine to check emails no matter what hour it is, attend business calls while eating dinner and work on weekends? When did these become reasonable?
According to a Huffington Post survey, 80% of Baby Boomers have reported to be always stressed whilst a Harvard Business Review has found that every year globally $190 billion is exhausted to deal with the mental and physical effects of burnout. Seamlessly bridging this gap between life and work while maintaining both uniformly reiterates the proverb, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
Current employment trends have revealed that our jobs have changed radically over the last few years. The amalgamation of technology, the governance of millennial in the work force and shifting global market mandates is laying the foundation for an evolution in the way people work. Culture has shown to affect how people across the world work. While certain nations are notorious for their long working hours, there also are nations that take extended breathers to wind down and take a break.
According to OECD, on the work life balance indicator, Netherlands was placed the highest with 9.5 out of 10, followed by Italy at 9.4, Denmark at 9 and Spain at 8.8. The math is simple isn’t it? CompareCamp says, companies that have made better work life balance accessible have witnessed more productivity, enhanced performances and have been able to prevent chronic stress and eventual burnout thereby improving the business’ bottom line and improved revenue generation.
Wearing Multiple Caps, Balancing The Act And Multitasking
My ways have always been a path less chosen and while there are war cries of giving more power to women, here’s where my thoughts differ. Women already stand immensely empowered; they do not need empowerment served to them in a cup. Empowerment is a rather decorative word being sprinkled around. Women have immense capacity and that one extra X chromosome is what makes us a class apart. My father and grandmother have been inspirational figures to me all my life. My grandmother was a constant fighter and just like her, I am equally passionate about life, anything that encourages me to do something disruptive and something that will enable me to build the foundation of a new beginning!
What you had dreamed of when you were 10 is totally different from what you are envisioning right now. Your vision keeps developing every day, every moment…what doesn’t change is your outlook, your point of view, your disposition to achieve that dream.
You have to constantly juggle between sustenance, determination, beliefs and that constantly changing fruition.
The importance of striking the right balance between work and life goes beyond the immediate, individual achievement. If there is a suitably encouraging environment that enable us to productively channel energies from either side, individual efforts add up to holistic systemic impact. As demonstrated by successful examples from Ireland to Chile, the right workforces have the power of moving economies to new stages of development and helping societies become more participatory and all-encompassing and it all starts with a workforce that is contented, one that is gratified.
In a world beyond the pandemic or otherwise, women have an enormous role in influencing what the world will look like. Period!
The pandemic has inexplicably affected women. As a consequence of the burden being caused by the balancing act between their jobs and life at home, women are dropping out of their jobs in throngs, perceptibly setting back women’s advancement in the workplace by eons. This unquestionably is an ominous sign. How can you and I ensure women get back into the game once the pandemic dust settles?
Champion each other by intensifying their business competitiveness through capacity-building training in entrepreneurial skills and business management. We also need to collectively make certain that women are represented and incorporated in all development and decision making because diverse teams drive better, more sustainable judgments. Across the value chain and in areas where such businesses function, we should bolster women. There is an urgent need to broaden safety nets that should embrace a variety of insurance products, pension schemes, finance, low-value equity investments, e-payment options and conditional digital cash transfers.
Final thoughts…
Balance is subjective and variable. My balance will be different from yours. Thus, I will not furnish indicators on work life balance. You are not trying to fit your life into mine and vice versa. Introspect – What are your precedence? Are you physically and mentally healthy in the situation you are in? Are you working too much? The answers you give yourself will alter every day, every moment. It will never be constant, thus find your own balance.
Shared by- Dr. Somdutta Singh ( Founder Assiduus Global)
